Lionel Perez “Pappy” Salazar (June 17, 1925 – November 9, 2013)

Last night, I learned of the passing of Lionel Salazar, a twice-wounded veteran of Company A, 24th Marines.

Lionel was a Laredo, Texas native who joined the Marine Corps at the age of seventeen. He went to Recruit Depot San Diego for boot camp, where he qualified as a sharpshooter, and on August 26, 1943, was assigned to Able Company at Camp Pendleton. He specialized as a BAR gunner and was promoted to Private First Class on New Year’s Day, 1944.

Lionel Salazar in 1943, shortly after joining the 24th Marines.

One month later, “Pappy” Salazar was landing on the island of Namur, Kwajalein Atoll, with “Jap mortars and artillery exploding all over.” “We were scared,” he freely admitted to the Kwajalein Hourglass in 2000. The battle was over in 24 hours, and the now veteran Salazar sailed back to Maui for some well-deserved R&R and to train for the next invasion.

Salazar landed on Saipan, where he was hit in the thigh by a piece of mortar shrapnel on July 6, 1944. He was treated and returned to his company in time for the invasion of Tinian; while defending the Marine line against a banzai attack on July 25, Salazar was wounded a second time.

Salazar spent the next two and a half months recuperating in a New Zealand hospital before returning to Camp Maui and the 24th Marines in September, 1944. He was nineteen years old, had fought in three pitched battles, received two Purple Hearts, and an official commendation for his performance on Saipan was being processed. The powers that be declared that Pappy had done his part, and in the winter of 1944 ordered him to report to the Naval Ammunition Depot in Hawthorne, Nevada. Salazar served out the war as a guard,and was discharged in December, 1945.

After the war, Pappy Salazar married Lucinda Peralez, enrolled at and graduated from Texas A & I, and raised a family while working for the United Gas Pipeline. He was active in the Fourth Marine Division Association, serving as the president of the Houston chapter for many years.

To read Lionel’s obituary, leave condolences, and see a photo gallery of his life before and after the war, please visit Dignity Memorial.